EDC 102 Issue: Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability
Matt, Kayla, Robin
I. Description of Problem or Issue
One of the main focuses of the No Child Left behind Act is the effectiveness and accountability of teachers. This aspect of our education system has great influence and needs much improvement. The goal of the NCLB act is ensure that each teacher is highly effective and therefore there is a high quality education force and each student is given the same opportunity to learn. However, there are no clear definitions of what makes an effective teacher. How does one measure the effectiveness of a teacher? How can there be improvement in every teacher? There are endless factors of teacher effectiveness, some of which cannot be measured. Every teacher is different, so how can there be a timely and efficient measurement and improvement in overall teacher effectiveness of the entire education system?
II. Research Summary
Factors of Teacher Quality: Robin Keller
The NCLB act has placed standards that focus on improving the effectiveness of teachers, and therefore the education system. To do this, however, one must understand the different factors that affect teacher quality. Teacher effectiveness can depend on countless factors, some including teacher degree levels, years of experience, teacher certification, teacher academic competency and also pedagogy. In various studies, these factors and their correlation to student performance were examined. The results are widely varied and do not allow one to make conclusions about how to exactly improve the quality of our teachers, or what are important features our new hired teachers must have. Other factors go into teachers such as their personality, their passion about their profession, their optimism about student performance and many others. Overall, there are too many different factors that are involved with teacher effectiveness that it is difficult to make general standards of what constitutes a high quality teacher. The quality of a teacher is something that can be observed in individual teachers, but has too many variables to make broad conclusions about.
How do we Improve Teacher Effectiveness (Is accountability the way)? - Matt Sheehan
Outstanding teachers produce the highest student performance, not only in tests but in all areas of learning and subject matter. How do we bring all teachers up to this level? The current system is accountability in which teachers are tied to their students performance on a test. The lower performing teachers will get pressured to do better and bring all their students up to achieving standards with the possibilty of being fired. The problem with this is that some teachers have to teach in low performing schools with poeverty stricken students and little resources. The current system of accountability only puts pressure on teachers to do better without giving any support as to how to do so. That is a major problem with many reforms, the intentions are good but they end up becoming misconstrued. In this case accountability is hurting teachers and students. Two of the articles I found described ways to improve teachers with the 5 principle approach, with teacher sharing, support, and groups that promote good teaching practices. Overall it was tough to find specific ways to improve teacher effectiveness, but the general ideas I got from the articles were that we need to get rid of the accountability system or seriously modify it.
Ways to evaluate teacher effectiveness: Kayla Belanger
Over the years, the evaluation of teachers has changed. For the past 25 years, however, the evaluation of teachers has aimed toward the same strategies. For about 20 years, teachers have been evaluated by student achievement. It seems that this would be reasonable, but when it is really looked into, student achievement doens't say much, if anything at all, about the quality and effectiveness of a teacher. More recently, better and more broader guidlines have been proposed for the evaluation of teachers. these methods encorperate both standardized tests and qualitative components. This is much more effective that just using one method of evaluation. There has been strides toward using tests as a measure of growth instead of achievement and using classroom visits for more qualitative analysis of teachers. These are steps in the right direction and the more components that are involved with teacher evaluation the better. Hopefully these ideas for teacher evaluation become more than just ideas,
II. Group Product Overview
Robin and Matt will give a power point presentation on Teacher Quality Factors and How to improve teacher effectiveness. Kayla will follow up with her presentation on ways to evaluate teacher effectiveness. We will end with a class activity where the students will describe the qualities of a memorable (effective or ineffective) teacher they had and we will present the results on the board.
There is no one method for improving teacher effectiveness across the nation. Teacher effectiveness varies by school, subject, and teacher. Therefore, accountability in NCLB is not an efficient way to measure teacher quality in all situations. Studies made on the factors of teacher effectiveness show mixed results and do not allow the education system to make conclusions about which factors need attention. We agree that excellent teachers are important for students to achieve the highest potential. The problem with accountability is that it does not give teachers a way to improve but pushes them to produce better test results or face the consequences. There are not many clearly defined ways to improve teacher effectiveness but there should be a focus on pedagogical teacher development. Evaluating teachers in the right way is also a significant factor in accountability and needs many different variable as apposed to the usual systems of standardized test scores and inconsistent classroom visits.
Now that you've researched your issue, discuss your results and write two (or more) paragraphs expressing your opinions. The first paragraph should explain the majority opinion. The following paragraph should summarize other opinions held by team members about the issue.
Matt, Kayla, Robin
I. Description of Problem or Issue
One of the main focuses of the No Child Left behind Act is the effectiveness and accountability of teachers. This aspect of our education system has great influence and needs much improvement. The goal of the NCLB act is ensure that each teacher is highly effective and therefore there is a high quality education force and each student is given the same opportunity to learn. However, there are no clear definitions of what makes an effective teacher. How does one measure the effectiveness of a teacher? How can there be improvement in every teacher? There are endless factors of teacher effectiveness, some of which cannot be measured. Every teacher is different, so how can there be a timely and efficient measurement and improvement in overall teacher effectiveness of the entire education system?
II. Research Summary
Factors of Teacher Quality: Robin Keller
The NCLB act has placed standards that focus on improving the effectiveness of teachers, and therefore the education system. To do this, however, one must understand the different factors that affect teacher quality. Teacher effectiveness can depend on countless factors, some including teacher degree levels, years of experience, teacher certification, teacher academic competency and also pedagogy. In various studies, these factors and their correlation to student performance were examined. The results are widely varied and do not allow one to make conclusions about how to exactly improve the quality of our teachers, or what are important features our new hired teachers must have. Other factors go into teachers such as their personality, their passion about their profession, their optimism about student performance and many others. Overall, there are too many different factors that are involved with teacher effectiveness that it is difficult to make general standards of what constitutes a high quality teacher. The quality of a teacher is something that can be observed in individual teachers, but has too many variables to make broad conclusions about.
How do we Improve Teacher Effectiveness (Is accountability the way)? - Matt Sheehan
Outstanding teachers produce the highest student performance, not only in tests but in all areas of learning and subject matter. How do we bring all teachers up to this level? The current system is accountability in which teachers are tied to their students performance on a test. The lower performing teachers will get pressured to do better and bring all their students up to achieving standards with the possibilty of being fired. The problem with this is that some teachers have to teach in low performing schools with poeverty stricken students and little resources. The current system of accountability only puts pressure on teachers to do better without giving any support as to how to do so. That is a major problem with many reforms, the intentions are good but they end up becoming misconstrued. In this case accountability is hurting teachers and students. Two of the articles I found described ways to improve teachers with the 5 principle approach, with teacher sharing, support, and groups that promote good teaching practices. Overall it was tough to find specific ways to improve teacher effectiveness, but the general ideas I got from the articles were that we need to get rid of the accountability system or seriously modify it.
Ways to evaluate teacher effectiveness: Kayla Belanger
Over the years, the evaluation of teachers has changed. For the past 25 years, however, the evaluation of teachers has aimed toward the same strategies. For about 20 years, teachers have been evaluated by student achievement. It seems that this would be reasonable, but when it is really looked into, student achievement doens't say much, if anything at all, about the quality and effectiveness of a teacher. More recently, better and more broader guidlines have been proposed for the evaluation of teachers. these methods encorperate both standardized tests and qualitative components. This is much more effective that just using one method of evaluation. There has been strides toward using tests as a measure of growth instead of achievement and using classroom visits for more qualitative analysis of teachers. These are steps in the right direction and the more components that are involved with teacher evaluation the better. Hopefully these ideas for teacher evaluation become more than just ideas,
II. Group Product Overview
Robin and Matt will give a power point presentation on Teacher Quality Factors and How to improve teacher effectiveness. Kayla will follow up with her presentation on ways to evaluate teacher effectiveness. We will end with a class activity where the students will describe the qualities of a memorable (effective or ineffective) teacher they had and we will present the results on the board.III. Visual Representation
IV. Research Questions and Reference Summaries
V. Group Reaction/Opinion(s) about Issue
There is no one method for improving teacher effectiveness across the nation. Teacher effectiveness varies by school, subject, and teacher. Therefore, accountability in NCLB is not an efficient way to measure teacher quality in all situations. Studies made on the factors of teacher effectiveness show mixed results and do not allow the education system to make conclusions about which factors need attention. We agree that excellent teachers are important for students to achieve the highest potential. The problem with accountability is that it does not give teachers a way to improve but pushes them to produce better test results or face the consequences. There are not many clearly defined ways to improve teacher effectiveness but there should be a focus on pedagogical teacher development. Evaluating teachers in the right way is also a significant factor in accountability and needs many different variable as apposed to the usual systems of standardized test scores and inconsistent classroom visits.Now that you've researched your issue, discuss your results and write two (or more) paragraphs expressing your opinions. The first paragraph should explain the majority opinion. The following paragraph should summarize other opinions held by team members about the issue.